German councils face compensation claims over childcare ruling

Working parents in Germany are cheering the country’s highest federal court after it ordered local authorities to pay compensation if they cannot find a child a kindergarten place.

Some 200 years after inventing modern childcare, parents hope the landmark ruling will force Germany to up its game on childcare after slipping behind France and Scandinavia in recent years.

Local authorities fear bankruptcy, meanwhile, as they are liable for lost earnings of parents forced to stay home with their children.

The case was brought by three women in Leipzig, in the eastern state of Saxony, who claim their town council failed to find them places for their children.

This after Germany passed a law in August 2013 guaranteeing all children between the ages of one and four a free childcare place.

In the three years since, parents across the country have complained that this right existed on paper, not in reality. The Leipzig mothers lost their case in all previous instances but the federal court in Karlsruhe ruled on Thursday that their complaint was justified. It ordered Leipzig authorities to pay the mothers a total of €14,000 in lost earnings and ordered state courts in Saxony to work out the details.

Architect Claudia Menschel (36), an architect, began to hunt for a childcare place shortly after the birth of her son, Tobias, and contacted the city council.

“They just messed me around and kept saying, you’re far too early, come six weeks beforehand and you’ll find something,” she said.

As her year’s parental leave drew to a close, however, she found no childcare place. Instead of returning to work in January 2014, as agreed with her employer, she stayed at home and the family survived on her husband’s income for 2½ months until a place was found.

Compensation

Though childcare in Germany is managed at state and council level, the federal court ruling opens the door to similar compensation claims across the country. Not only that, it places the burden of proof on councils, not parents.

Local authorities are liable for compensation, the court ruled, unless they can prove that they are not to blame for the delay in providing a childcare place, such as if the builder of a new kindergarten building goes bankrupt. If they failed to budget adequately for kindergarten places, the court ruled, parents have a compensation case.

The ruling could cause massive changes in Germany, where kindergarten places are in such demand – particularly in big cities such as Berlin – that agencies have sprung up finding “free” childcare places for a €500 fee.

A quarter century after German unification, childcare remains one of the big cultural divides between east and west. In eastern Germany, where women traditionally worked, on average one in two children are placed in childcare, up to 63 per cent. Western Germany has far lower rates, reflecting a tradition of stay-at-home mothers. In parts of the southern state of Bavaria, just 13 per cent of children are in daycare.